Over at International Food Policy Research Institute, Antoine Bouet, David Orden, and Simon Mevel argue that the if the U.S. agreed to the EU position on market access, then less developed countries would see significant gains from the Doha round.

Many emerging economies are under increasing pressure from developed world partners and international institutions to introduce free market procedures in their agricultural sectors as well as other sectors of the economy. This analysis from Oxfam questions that approach, looking at the agriculture and trade policies of six different developing countries, each of which has enjoyed unusually high rates of economic growth and development. They are South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Chile and Botswana. Their experience may shed further light on the extent to which governments should retain their powers to intervene in trade as opposed to relinquishing them in favour of market liberalisation.

Rising food prices offer the United States an opportunity to wean farmers off lavish subsidies. However, as David Victor argues in this Newsweek article, the U.S Congress has been doing just the opposite by passing legislation that will heap even more cash on farmers.

We are now several months into the global food crisis. Food prices have almost doubled in three years, threatening to push 100 million people into absolute poverty, undoing much of the development progress of the past few years. The new hunger has triggered riots from Haiti to Egypt to Ethiopia, threatening political stability; it has conjured up a raft of protectionist policies, threatening globalization. Yet, Sebastian Mallaby argues that the response to this crisis from governments the world over has been lackadaisical or worse.

The sharp run-up in food prices has triggered riots in several countries and threatened to push millions of people below the poverty line. In this Center for Geoeconomic Studies Working Paper, Karen H. Johnson explains the causes and likely future course of food-price inflation and analyzes the implications for central banks, trade negotiators, and agricultural policy.

The world's agricultural system stands at the shores of a technological Rubicon. On the near side, where most farmers toil today, new strains of crops are still largely the product of conventional hit-or-miss breeding. On the distant side, where the advance guard of farmers and seed companies already operates, a revolution in biotechnology awaits, in which scientists can control breeding and engineer new crops by splicing in genes from species near and far.

This paper seeks to place the divergent approaches of the European Union and United States toward the introduction and marketing of genetically modified (GM) foods and seeds in a broader context. It argues that an important key to understanding why Europe and the United States have chosen to regulate identical technologies in such a dissimilar fashion has to do with recent changes in politics of risk regulation in Europe.

The purpose of this report is to help create a more strategic policy on GM foods in the U.S. Its main product will be a major article that (a) articulates why the next generation of GM foods is a vitally important innovation, and (b) details policies for managing the environmental, health, trade, research and investment issues that arise in the GM food debate. Through a series of meetings in the U.S., along with efforts to catalyze a similar set of meetings in Europe, we will focus on the need for the specifics of a sensible long-term strategy.

With the 2014 farm bill now enacted into law, U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack visits CFR to discuss the USDA's policy priorities with Roger Altman of Evercore Partners. Vilsack credits advanced agricultural technology and the productivity of American farmers with maintaining the country's status as a food-secure nation, despite a growing population and a shrinking agricultural sector.

With the 2014 farm bill now enacted into law, U.S. agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack visits CFR to discuss the USDA's policy priorities with Roger Altman of Evercore Partners. Vilsack credits advanced agricultural technology and the productivity of American farmers with maintaining the country's status as a food-secure nation, despite a growing population and a shrinking agricultural sector.

CFR Experts Guide

The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.

New Council Special Reports

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.

Koblentz argues that the United States should work with other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.

The authors argue that it is essential to begin working now to expand and establish rules and norms governing armed drones, thereby creating standards of behavior that other countries will be more likely to follow.

2014 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2014 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »